Unfortunately, these bouts of crying seem to bring on my biggest parenting pet peeve: unsolicited advice from anyone in your life from the snaggle-tooth cashier at the grocery store to my mother.
Top ten pieces of advice I have gotten on how to console a crying baby (yes, the comments in quotations are actual suggestions that I have received):
*"Maybe you should rock him." Yes, thank you, we have a rocking chair at home. The usual effect is that he cries while I rock him.
*"Have you tried a pacifier?" Yes, thank you. It seems that unless I duct tape it to his face, he spits it back out at me. Maybe I'll try super glue next time so nobody sees it, the duct tape usually attracts stares.
*"Oh, maybe you should put him in his stroller and go for a walk." Yes, thank you, because both of us want to be on the side of a truck route with no sidewalk in subzero temperatures.
*"Maybe he is hungry, you should try to feed him." You're right. He is looking a little chubby these days and we think he needs to lose weight so we have been rationing him to 4 oz of formula twice a day. Maybe we should up it.
*"Well he looks tired, you should really lay him down." You're right. I've spent every waking second with him since he was conceived, seems I've lost track of his sleep schedule.
*"Maybe he is a little gassy, have you tried gas drops?" Have you heard the Yeti's father and both grandfathers? Farting is a sport. Of course he is gassy, its genetic. They drink water, shit themselves, then blame the cat. We scotch guard boxers in our house.
*"Well here, let me hold him, maybe he just needs a change of scenery." Of course at this point he stops crying. "Huh look at that, he cries for his mommy, but not for me. He loves me sooooo much." Yeah, I'm a bad mother. He and I have this agreement that he stops crying for everyone else, just so mommy can have a break from holding him and have a stiff drink.
*"Well maybe he needs to be changed." What do you mean, changed? Like as in switch him out for another baby? Oh, his diaper, yeah, I did that last week.
*"Maybe some quiet music would calm him." I've been playing Five Finger Death Punch and Pantera for him, quietly. "No, like classical music. I read it makes them smarter." Oh, we were hoping for an underachiever so we won't be doing anything like that.
*"Sometimes I put my baby in his car seat on the dryer, they like the motion." Yeah, I saw this movie once where a woman sat on a dryer too, she wasn't wearing any clothes and she REALLY liked the motion.
So, thank you everyone for your advice, but keep your goddamn mouth shut. I have a baby screaming for no reason. The last thing I want is for you to make me feel like a contestant on Teen Mom 2.
<3 Xena. I assumed I was the only one left on the internet who loves her so much.
ReplyDeleteBabies are always worse for their mothers. People are really just trying to help when they offer advice. I started handing mine over to anyone willing to take her off my hands for a bit because I knew she'd be quieter (and now at this age, better behaved) with anyone not me. If you think about it too much it could make any mother cry, but there's something in the connection that makes my child think "Hey it's mom, I can just be a brat because she'll love me anyway."